Under the influence of the ongoing global geopolitical transformations, a powerful catalyst of which was the crisis around Ukraine, the collective West is “raising the stakes” in its desire to achieve “strategic defeat” of Russia. Accordingly, the security situation in Europe is sharply deteriorating, the confrontation zone is expanding and the risks of direct conflict between Russia and NATO are growing. The United States and its satellites continue to expand deliveries of heavy weapons and send volunteers to help the Kiev regime. Deliveries of U.S. HIMARS long-range missile systems and Gray Eagle combat drones capable of hitting targets in Russian border towns have begun.
At the same time, in the course of the special military operation in Ukraine, disagreements have emerged within the Western “camp” regarding the future course towards Russia. The Anglo-Saxons are betting on a “protracted” conflict and insist on intensified military assistance to Kiev. At the same time, the leading countries of continental Europe are in favor of maintaining a dialogue with Russia in order to achieve a negotiated settlement on terms acceptable to Russia. Warsaw looks apart, which, according to expert estimates, seeks to take advantage of the weakening of Kiev’s position for the eventual annexation of some “primordial” Polish territories in Ukraine, or even the revival of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in a new territorial configuration (a fantasy on the theme “from sea to sea” by Jozef Pilsudski).
The North Atlantic Alliance set a course for a long-term confrontation with Russia. Adopted at the NATO summit in Madrid in June, the bloc’s new fundamental document - its “Strategic Concept” through 2030 (the so-called “NATO-2030 Strategy”) - has a clearly anti-Russian orientation: Russia was defined as “the most significant and direct threat to the security” of the NATO countries, which the allies pledged to “contain” by all available means, including hybrid and cyber warfare, as well as new military and information technology. The process of practical inclusion into NATO of formerly neutral Sweden and Finland has been launched (the protocols on their participation were signed on July 5, 2022), which is objectively fraught with creation of new threats to security of Russia and doubling the length of our line of contact with the Alliance. The Baltic Sea is already thought of as a “NATO lake”.
Russia’s relations with the West and NATO are practically frozen, and, presumably, for the long term. Any stabilization of the military and political situation on the continent and in European politics in general, including reducing the risk of nuclear escalation, will require the development of a new security architecture that ensures its indivisibility in the Euro-Atlantic. It will have to be created practically from scratch and taking into account the developments contained in the draft documents handed over by the United States and NATO on December 15 of last year. In the meantime, military and other assistance to Ukraine is becoming increasingly burdensome for NATO countries, while the expected financial, food, migration and energy crises in the West are fraught with a radical complication of the internal political situation of Western countries and their further self-isolation from the rest of the world.
As before, U.S. foreign policy is focused on the solution of domestic political tasks of the administration. Despite Joseph Biden’s attempts to write off his problems to “Russian aggression in Ukraine” and to rally the nation around “basic American values,” his administration’s ultra-liberalist course has only contributed to a growing split in American society. The infrastructure reforms proposed to Congress in the form of bills were only partially supported due to Republican cohesion and internal contradictions within the Democratic camp. At the same time, a spike in inflation due to higher social spending undermined the credibility of Biden himself, including among his base electorate, and led to a collapse in the head of state’s rating. As the midterm elections for Congress approach, the Democrats’ chances of retaining control of the House of Representatives are running to zero, allowing the Republicans to manipulate the budget process for electoral purposes in the next presidential campaign.
The start of the Russian Federation’s special military operation in Ukraine was perceived in Washington as a chance to “transform the agenda” and rally the U.S. population around the president on the grounds of Russophobia. As a result, the Ukrainian crisis has accelerated the degradation of U.S.-Russian relations. We can see the desire of the elites to consolidate the image of Russia as a hostile country in the mass consciousness of America. Unlike Europe, which is experiencing complex problems provoked by the conflict in Ukraine, from rising inflation to an influx of migrants, Americans are less affected by the sanctions boomerang.
The level of mobilization of Western elites around the anti-Russian course, in its turn, does not allow us to expect a change in its nature even after the 2024 elections in the United States. According to a number of expert estimates, only a generational shift in the U.S. elite (as polls show, young people are less inclined to demonize Russia) will restore hope for positive change and a shift toward normalization of relations with Russia.
In assessing the geopolitical implications of the current alarming situation, most experts assume that the United States is unable to assert its global leadership and ensure the promotion of its “rules-based order” (in fact, it is intended to replace the postwar international legal order with the central role of the UN), while a multipolar world is already an emerging reality. The post-American world is a term long introduced by American political scientists. The vast majority of Asian states, almost all of Africa and the Arab world, as well as a number of Latin American countries, including the leading ones, have refused to support the anti-Russian position and Western sanctions against Russia. Contrary to the intentions of Western elites, the current crisis in relations with Russia has highlighted with new force the qualitative activation of the independent role of the non-Western world within the trend of regionalization of global politics as a stage of movement towards a multipolar world order. Moreover, the self-isolation of the West means nothing less than the regionalization of European and Euro-Atlantic politics, which ceases to be a driver of global politics, as it was in the last 400-500 years, and in the 20th century was manifested in two world wars and the Cold War. Rather, we can say that Europe finds itself on the margins of Greater Eurasia, of which (in his Heartland) Halford Mackinder wrote 100 years ago (he also predicted the geopolitical decline of the Atlantic powers). One of the manifestations of Eurasian politics is the SCO and its expansion, as well as the Chinese project “One Belt, One Road”.
This, in particular, confirms the high relevance of the processes observed in the broader dynamic Asia-Pacific region (APR). There is a well-established tradition of seeking solutions in an inclusive and consensual manner, without the use of externally borrowed models. This has created a stable development paradigm and a good anti-crisis potential, with a steady trend towards polycentric integration interaction on the basis of regional centers of gravity (primarily ASEAN). All this leads to a further shift of the focus of world politics and economics towards the Asia-Pacific region, attracting the increased attention of almost all global actors and simultaneously expanding the circle of Asian participants in cross-border cooperation.
At the same time, a dangerous element of the geopolitical situation in East Asia has become the U.S. desire to reshape the Asia-Pacific region to suit its own needs by implementing the Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific Strategy. In fact, it boils down to an attempt to implement American-centric bloc plans aimed at “concentrated” expansion of Washington’s zone of influence in Asia within a “double deterrence” - Russia and China - and in opposition to multilateral structures already operating in the region. To this end, the U.S. is intensively constructing a chain of its Asia-Pacific allies (Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand) network of new alliances and dialogue formats, such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) involving the United States, Australia, Japan and India, and the explicitly military alliance AUKUS (USA, UK and Australia) - a “defense and security partnership,” referring to the outdated idea of the Anglosphere, which also supports the conclusion that Anglo-Saxon countries are self-isolating - this time in the APAC. Japan has been actively solidifying the anti-Chinese orientation of such steps, following Washington’s lead with references to the situation in the Taiwan Strait, which is exacerbated by U.S. provocations.
There are also attempts to strengthen the economic component of pro-Western structures in the APAC. In April, Washington announced the launch of “its” so-called framework agreement on economic and trade cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region, also believed to be aimed at deterring China under American domination. Twelve countries (Australia, Brunei, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam) have been invited to participate in this platform. Presumably, this project is intended to compensate for the rejection by Donald Trump’s administration of the idea of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which was promoted under Obama.
An additional troubling factor has been NATO’s increased interest in East Asia, including its participation in military demonstrations in the South China Sea area, considered a “hotbed of instability”. In the new strategy of NATO, the globalist ambitions have found their vivid reflection: the intention to “strengthen dialogue and cooperation with new and existing partners in the Indo-Pacific region to solve problems of interregional challenges and ensure common security interests” is declared, while China is described as a “systemic challenge” and the partnership between Russia and China is “contrary to the values and interests” of the alliance. The nature of this bloc policy is clearly destructive; it contradicts the basic understanding of security and cooperation as it is rooted in the civilizational codes of the leading Asian powers.
It is very important, however, that the overall positive dynamic in the Asia-Pacific region remains unchanged, and there are enough sober forces here who are unacceptable to have artificial formulas of “rule-based order” imposed from outside, leading to a split in the established regional policy. Among them is ASEAN, a promising collective player in the regional field, which, despite the increased flirtation with it by the United States, remains opposed to attempts to squeeze the Association’s systemically important positions in the APAC, distances itself from anti-Chinese alliances and builds up its strategic partnership with Russia and cooperation with the EAEU.
Influential India has demonstrated its commitment to strategic autonomy by maintaining a particularly privileged strategic partnership with Russia and opposing the militarization of “partnerships” under U.S. auspices. New Delhi, for its part, seems to be trying to take revenge on Pakistan for the loss of its position in Afghanistan, including by strengthening its cultural, economic and political presence in the Central Asian republics. By the way, according to most experts, the disastrous and shameful withdrawal of the U.S. from Afghanistan last August will have irreversible consequences for American policy in the APAC.
To be continued...
Rector of the Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia,
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to the UK (2011-2019) Alexander Yakovenko
